


Who Were You, Really?

by Sapphoria



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Character Study, Complete, Flashbacks, Galo has a panic attack and things begin to dawn on him, Gen, Growth, Introspection, Moving On, Over analyzing, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Realization, Reevaluation of a Relationship, Self-Acceptance, Unbeta'd, Unhealthy Relationships, Warped Feelings, blind trust, photograph
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-12-16 15:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21038120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphoria/pseuds/Sapphoria
Summary: So things should have been good when Galo finally pulled open his locker for the first time in a week or so. A happy sigh leaving his lips at the prospect of getting into some comfortable clothes and going to his room for a well deserved nap!Oh. Oh...





	1. Old Photo

**Author's Note:**

> The time has come.  
I have finally been enabled.  
Enjoy.

It doesn't  _ really _ hit him until a week or so after it was all over. 

They'd done it. The world was safe. Sure, there was rampant destruction and an enormous space arc crushing half the city, but small victories. 

Galo smiled with everyone as they get back to the station that evening, another job well done for the day at least. More sifting through rubble, taking names of survivors (burnish and non burnish alike). Mad Burnish was even pitching in (He knew Lio would help. He was too good a leader not to) and things were going fairly smoothly. Well, as smooth as putting together a city falling apart at the seams could be. 

So things should have been good when Galo finally pulled open his locker for the first time in a week or so. A happy sigh leaving his lips at the prospect of getting into some comfortable clothes and going to his room for a well deserved nap!

_Oh._ **Oh.**

He didn’t remember  _ that _ picture being there, taped up in the corner of the rectangular unit. Oh, wait. It had always been there, hadn’t it? Ever since he first began his time in Burning Rescue… 

_ It was a photo from a year or two ago. Galo himself in frame, a broad grin spread across his lips and saluting the camera, in uniform. A goofy expression on his face, customary.  _

_ Next to him, the tall and imposing figure of Kray. Kray Foresight… The blonde man stood beside him in that photo, after his graduation for his EMT training. A hand lightly rested on Galo’s shoulder, noncommittal. His expression was the same pleasant one he seemed to wear most times.  _

_ Engulfing flames and red eyes, unhinged and boisterous, disgusted and terrifying. _ The image flashed across Galo’s vision, only for a split second. His breath caught in his throat. 

_ Oh, right… He was like that the whole time, underneath it all… Right?  _ He swallowed. When did his mouth become so dry? His chest ached, heat and compression and suffocation.

“-alo? Earth to Galo!” Aina waved her hand next to his face, making the man reel back.

He hit his fist against the locker door and cursed, rubbing his now sore knuckle and glancing up to his teammate and friend. He smiled, bashful. It didn’t completely meet his eyes.

“I’ve been talking to you for, like, five minutes and you haven’t said a word! What’s up?” The pink haired girl asked curiously as she casually leaned on the locker next to his. She only seemed a little surprised by his sudden, jerky response. Aina raised her brows ever so slightly nonetheless. 

  
“Oh. Sorry! Spaced out. Must be real tired! You did good work out there today!” Galo said quickly, his heart pounding hard against his ribs. He rubbed at his tender knuckle, feeling over the ridge of the bone. Grounding, somewhat.  _ What are you so freaked out about?  _   
  
Aina blinked at the man openly, tilting her head just slightly. Whatever she thought, she kept to herself before pivoting slightly, to glance into Galo’s messily decorated locker. Maybe to inspect what he’d been so lost in thought by. 

Galo moved before he could stop himself, hastily tearing down the old photograph and crumpling it, shoving the paper into his pocket. He stared at Aina with wide eyes.  _ Shit.  _   
  
“I- Uh… Night! I’m hittin’ the hay!” The man stretched, definitely overcompensating for his weird behavior.  _ Good going, Thymos.  _

“Rest up, yeah? We got a lot more work to do tomorrow!” Galo babbled, his panic only raising at the wrinkle in Aina’s eyebrows and the look he saw Lucia give him from across the room at her computer. 

The looks, the weight of the paper crumbled in his pocket, It hurt. His expression fell slightly before turning on his heel abruptly, hurrying out of the Burning Rescue HQ’s locker room and down the hall. 

Galo shoved on past the stairs to the dormitories and kept surging forward, too scared to stop and let his thoughts catch up to him. He felt too full, too pent up, the photograph burned in his pocket. 

He found himself in the garage, walking past the different mechas and machines lining the wall, only taking a moment to glance at his own beloved mecha, restored in full by the quick work of Lucia the mad scientist. His stomach twisted. 

_ The Matoi tech. It had been an exciting idea that Galo had come up with during his studying for his EMT certification. It was expected some kind of ‘gimmick’ was needed for the tech in a group like Burning Rescue. Kray had said he thought it was an interesting idea, the homage to historical elements of firefighting. Passive. But it was praise? Galo had thought it was far fetched someone like the governor would like an idea like that before… He’d been elated at his approval, or lack thereof.  _

_ But now it was meaningless. He was stupid, naive. He knew better now.  _

Nothing was the same anymore.  _ It _ ** _ is _ ** _ all different now, huh? _

_ Did I know him? Did I know him at all?  _

Galo continued past the machines and the firetruck, coming to a rack that housed his own motorbike. He unfastened the chain keeping it upright and held to the handlebars as he wheeled it out. His grip was too tight. 

He needed to cool down. 


	2. New Clarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galo grieves.   
Then he accepts.

He went to the frozen lake.    
  
Or where it had once been. Now the calming place he once knew was just a crater in the earth, rubble and debris covering what was previously the newly discovered lab of Dr.Deus Prometh.  _ The man Kray killed in cold blood. All for the sake of some technology he could  _ ** _exploit_ ** _ \-  _

Galo stomped his booted foot onto the frozen dirt, hard. The wince of pain he felt in his joints only distracted him for a second. The cold sweat that had accumulated on his skin had only increased and sent a chill down his spine in the evening air. 

He just stared at the ground, his fists shaking at his side. 

_ You’re an  _ ** _eyesore. _ **

** _..._ ** _ with the  _ ** _highest mortality rate_ ** _ …  _

_ I’ve always  _ ** _hated _ ** _ when you called me that. _

Galo brought his hands up to his head, running his fingers aggressively through his hair as he uselessly tried to turn off his thoughts. 

Sure, he’d had a week to cry about his feelings of shock at Kray’s sudden aggressiveness while he was locked up. But it was only during the heat of the final battle aboard the Promassus did the full truth come out. He hadn’t had any time to process it, then. It had happened too fast and Lio’s safety was in the forefront of his mind. 

Galo sighed heavily, all the fight leaving his tight shoulders as he slumped under the weight of it all. It felt like so much to bear. 

Kray had hated him his entire life and he was too dense and eager for his approval to figure it out. 

Kray wanted him to slip up and disappear so he wouldn’t get in the way of his plan. 

Kray had started the fire he had ‘saved’ him from in a burnish spasm. 

Kray had  _ killed his parents.  _

Galo bite his lip lightly, squatting to hug his knees and burying his head into his legs. He groaned outwardly, holding his head and just trying to sort through his thoughts. It was a lot to process. 

He wanted to be  _ angry.  _ He wanted to be  _ livid,  _ Like Lio was in that huge dragon aporition. 

His chest ached. 

But, Starting the fire… That wasn’t Kray’s intent, was it? He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, cursed with the sudden onset of uncontrollable power… So he couldn’t- no, wouldn’t hate him like Lio could. 

Kray had indirectly altered the path of Galo’s entire existence in a matter of seconds. It was an accident that the ex-governor had to pay for and inevitably led to his downfall, in the end… 

But what he did to Lio, to the Burnish, that was all  _ direct. He meant to kill and use them. Their entire race. Some sick superiority complex over people who were just like him,  _ ** _human. _ **

Galo sighed quietly, stilling his hands from carding stressfully through his hair and looked up, leveling his gaze with the frozen crater as he squatted and simply sat. 

It really just dawned on him. 

_ Some people just don’t and won’t care for others.  _

That didn’t sit well with him. But it was the brutal truth. 

If Kray never cared about him,  _ then he never would.  _ And he needed to accept that. 

If Kray wasn’t sorry for what he did when Galo was a child,  _ Then he never would be.  _

Galo stood slowly, taking a deep breath then letting it all flow out of him. 

His shock, his anger, his hurt. 

He stretched his arms behind his head and stared out at the large frozen crater. He could still see his breath. 

_ It strung. The rejection of someone he looked up to so much.  _

Galo blinked as he heard the low roar of engines coming up the usually quiet forest path. He saw the familiar reds and yellows of the Burning Rescue vehicles, his friends. And the newer black and pinks of  _ new  _ friends, coming up the mountain pass in his direction. 

He smiled. 

_ But it wouldn’t sting forever.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little Galo character study.   
I just think he's definitely more of a thinker then he lets on. He has a big heart and is ready to heal after being betrayed.   
Comments and feedback appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments greatly appreciated!  
I thought "My. I wonder when it really hits him how the man who he idolized /hated'/ him and wanted him dead?"


End file.
